Well, are you forgetting that I was in Soviet studies, once upon a time? Frequently dealing with people who couldn't or wouldn't tell you the truth about what they thought was part of it. The doublethink on their part had nothing to do with craziness one way or the other. It was a defense mechanism. The closer people were to the communist party the less likely you were to hear anything but propaganda coming from their mouths about how the USSR was incomparably the greatest society in every possible way. Those people always had the greatest fear of not saying or doing the right thing. But even the party hacks when they visited the US would ask for directions to the store where they could buy winter coats, blue jeans, the electronics gyzmos of the day and so on. The doublethink on our part was that we politely didn't laugh at the propaganda as they were spewing it, and directed them to the stores without comment. Americans who didn't behave that way toward them caused great embarrassment, and as a result wouldn't get Russians to talk to them at all. It's one thing to do odd things out of direct repression or necessity and quite another to come to you own free conclusions and decide to live your life with a bag over your head. Tea party members of Congress claim to be reflecting the American public as a whole. Is it because they are lying, because they are crazy or because their circle of friends is so limited they don't know what the heck they are talking about?
I was in bad mood when I watched Sleepy Hollow, and as I said in the post, I wasn't really fair unloading on the show which is a fantasy after all. But I think it is fair to say that the TV and movie industry has generally used artistic license get away with being sloppy and, yes, stupid, in a world where good facts are a few clicks away on the Internet. Why always make things up when usually the facts aren't going to interfere with your story at all?
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Date: 2013-10-17 06:45 am (UTC)I was in bad mood when I watched Sleepy Hollow, and as I said in the post, I wasn't really fair unloading on the show which is a fantasy after all. But I think it is fair to say that the TV and movie industry has generally used artistic license get away with being sloppy and, yes, stupid, in a world where good facts are a few clicks away on the Internet. Why always make things up when usually the facts aren't going to interfere with your story at all?